Posted
by
Soulskill
on Tuesday August 24, 2010 @04:08AM
from the some-sales-aren't-worth-it dept.

Just over a year ago, we found out that Nokia Siemens provided internet monitoring equipment to Iran. Now, reader Tootech sends in news that the company is being sued by an Iranian journalist who was captured with the help of that equipment. From El Reg:
"Isa Saharkhiz went into hiding following Iran's 2009 presidential elections, after publishing an article branding the Grand Ayatollah as a hypocrite who was primarily responsible for vote tallies widely regarded as being fraudulent. According to a complaint filed in federal court in Virginia, officials with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Iran tracked him down with the help of cellphone-monitoring devices and other eavesdropping gear provided by Nokia Siemens. 'Defendants knowingly and willingly delivered very capable and sophisticated equipment for unlawful intercepting, monitoring, and filtering of electronic communications ("Intelligence Solutions") to Iranian officials,' the complaint alleged. ... According to the document, Saharkhiz has been severely tortured since his arrest. He was held in solitary confinement for more than 80 days, and his ribs were broken in a struggle during his arrest. The complaint said it may be amended to add as many as 1,500 other political prisoners who are being held under similar circumstances. Additional defendants may also be added."

I agree that this a question of where it is unlawful and may be a case of forum shopping, however certain countries have sanctions on what can be exported to other countries, a classic example being the USA restricting what can be exported to Cuba. A breach of this can be an offence if the country from where the equipment was sourced has such sanctions in place, or the corporate headquarters is in such a country.

True, but the quoted text states that it was the electronic monitoring that was unlawful, not the act of exporting the equipment needed to do so.

Nevertheless, since Iran bashing seems to be the latest trend I'd like to suggest a deal. The US bitches at Iran at for electronic surveillance, and the EU does it for the torture, and we both conveniently ignore our own little forays into these fields.

Can I count on equal support if I stone your girlfriend/wife/daughter(s) to death ? (slowly of course)

Hey at worst I'd be as bad as the current Iranians you're defending. I just wonder how far this defense of the indefensible goes. I wonder, if I were to kill you, and claim I'm doing it for my beliefs whether or not you'll push your own arbitrary moral values on me or not.

This post is an attempt at using sarcasm to call you out on your support for, e.g. stoning gays, religious genocide, oppressive state rel

All theoretical ethical stuff aside, it will be interesting to see if a case like this will go forward in a US court.

US telcomms, whose NSA collaboration almost certainly exposed at least a few people to extralegal detention and torture, were specifically granted immunity for any collaboration that might have occurred.

While I don't doubt that we'd like another chance to stick it to Iran, and emphasize their repressive-theocratic-hellhole characteristics, I can't imagine the US being too enthusiastic about a precedent that makes corporate collaboration with a surveillance state legally problematic....

Collaboration with the NSA is not a virtue. It is aiding those who would make the US more like Iran. If bombing Iran could raise the standard of living for the majority there then why does Iraqi life suck so much? Let's not defend the indefensible on either side of the pond.

Very easy discussion. Both countries had quite a bit of viking presence. Vikings were people who taught their kids how to be inherently cruel by forcing them to rip wigs off live birds at the age of three.

You can imagine how they treated their victims as adults. Actually scratch that, most modern people lack imagination to be able to. Being a viking thrall was probably one of the worst fates one could have across all times.

So yes, grand parent is completely correct in spite of that retarded flamebait mod. W

Very easy discussion. Both countries had quite a bit of viking presence. Vikings were people who taught their kids how to be inherently cruel by forcing them to rip wigs off live birds at the age of three.

I assume that the OP was talking about modern Sweden vs. the Republic of Congo (which would make sense, because, IIRC, neither country existed in Viking times).

North Korea has a Dear Leader loved by nearly the entire populace; many outsiders feel this must be due to brainwashing.US has a president hated by roughly half of our populace (and hated nearly rabidly by a smaller subset), and believed to be loved by roughly the other half. (Ignoring those who say "Meh, NotBush" and neither love nor hate him.)

Given that in the US you can express disapproval of the president and his policies without getting "reeducated" or shot, I think it's clear that one

That's some serious cultural relativism you've got going there. Would any sane person (which would exclude Kim Jong-Il) choose to live in North Korea, rather than moving with their family to pretty much any Western democracy?

Considering we overthrew their democratically elected government in the 50s to put in the Shah as our puppet, one of the worst dictators we could dig up, just so our corporations could get better deals? Yeah I think we really don't have much moral high ground there at this point. Is Iran a brutal place? Yeah, no doubts there. But considering our idea of "democracy" is elect someone we approve of I really don't think we have much moral high ground left in that area at this point frankly.

In case you don't know and would like to read up here [wikipedia.org] is a good starting point.

Considering we overthrew their democratically elected government in the 50s to put in the Shah as our puppet, one of the worst dictators we could dig up, just so our corporations could get better deals? Yeah I think we really don't have much moral high ground there at this point.

This is an interesting ethical issue. Does everything you've ever done preclude you from every having a moral position in the future? If I robbed a bank in my youth, does that mean I can never say that robbing a bank is a bad thing?

I'm not inclined to attribute morality to corporate entities or nations, but I'm not sure I accept the argument "You did X, so you can never again hold position Y". Better to accept that nations, like corporations, are designed to do whatever they think is in their best interest at the time. It's what they do. Short of much greater global governance, it's going to stay that way.

No, but you can't say it with any kind of moral authority if you keep robbing banks over and over again. Iran isn't the only example.

Those are excellent examples you list there, of course. The continual placement of US-injected dictators all around the world is sure an issue, especially where US troops are stationed to protect their puppets. I assume you mean governments throughout the Balkans, eastern Europe, South Korea, Japan, etc, since those are the places where the US military continues to prevent

...for starters, from POTUS and the Congress for what the US did to Iranians in 1953. Anything less is just posturing. In a perfect world, they could also press charges against the US officers and corporations that against the US laws of the time knowingly supported the crimes of the Sha regime. I pretty much doubt that the US Constitution and laws have or have had provisions for the authorization of the torture and murder of innocent people at will.

The US has some shitty policy and has for a long time, but we are not as much of theocratic, totalitarian, oppressive, surveilance state as Iran is.

Really? The US isn't a theocratic, totalitarian, oppressive, surveillance state much worse than Iran? You could have fooled me. We have millions in the US prison system most of whom are there for non-violent drug crimes. We have police at nearly every street corner who harass you for not conforming to social norms. We have a vocal religious group that controls at least part of our government at all times forcing inane laws like blue laws on everyone else. You may find moral superiority over the types

Methinks you are young, that you've never lived outside the US, and have a rather exaggerated view of our both our faults and the pace of historical change. Most of the things you list will eventually be corrected. Once upon a time we passed the Alien and Sedition Acts [wikipedia.org], and the Sedition Act of 1918 [wikipedia.org]. We put whole ethnic groups in detention camps 70 years ago and booted people out of their jobs in the 1950s for having had radical politics in their youth [wikipedia.org]. And if you think the blue laws are bad now, our ancesto

1: Again, it was our grandparents and great grandparents generation that did that.

2: Dropping nukes on Japan was the more moral option for ending that war. Our other option was to firebomb every city and mount an invasion that would have killed tens of millions of Japanese instead of tens of thousands.

2: Dropping nukes on Japan was the more moral option for ending that war. Our other option was to firebomb every city and mount an invasion that would have killed tens of millions of Japanese instead of tens of thousands.

Imagine if we chose option 3:

3: Don't invade mainland Japan. Establish dominance around the area, but don't forget that in the end, it was an island.

Is it an attractive option? Perhaps not from the perspective of American retribution. We might not be in such a beneficial situation today

Erecting a permanent military occupation of the sea surrounding Japan:

A: does not end the war.

B: is technically impossible.

C: does not allow Japan to reform, rebuild and become one of the better nations on earth. Look at what happened when this same said tactic was used against North Korea. Its military dictatorship turned upon and subjugated its own people to slavery and starvation.

The sheer brutality of the Japanese overlords in Asia dictated that they be brought to their knees. Had the allies not done it at the time, it is quite likely that China and/or Korea would have done so soon after. Not to mention all the other offended parties throughout the Pacific and Asian theaters of war.

Japan had some karma coming to them, one way or the other, from one set of powers or another. America was on the scene, with the powe

Nooooo, I'm saying there is a reason everyone hates us over there and it is because since WWII the CIA and our other pot stirrers have been stirring up shit in that region forever. Hell just look at how politicians trip over themselves to kiss the Israeli booty and get seen at places like AIPAC, why? Because sadly there are many that believe our entire foreign policy in the region should be based on whether or not a guy that died 2000+ years ago will have a place to land his cloud or not.

They were violating UN sanctions against Iran. So it should be unlawful in any civilized country.

Except all (read the introduction) [cia.gov] the UN sanctions against Iran are related with its nuclear program [dfat.gov.au]. That's a bit of a distance from interception/monitoring technology(besides I really wouldn't expect Nokia or Siemens to conduct unlawful businesses, at least not unlawful under the Germany, Finland or Iran legislation)

Slashdotters post 10,000 photos of trashed Nokias. Does that influence "The Law"?. "The Law" can be seen as the final rulings, and a composition of many factors. PR, Written law, precedents, lawyer and client skills, judge, jury, place and time, social acceptance or tolerance at that social-political moment, media influence, public and lobby actions, and many other factors influence decisions. Piracy, for example, clearly illegal and punishable by written law, but it's socially accepted within many contex

I know that confuses things, but that's how it works. You want to do business here? Well, you've got to obey our laws. And our laws mean for Iran not have this technology. If you're going to be in the business of arming both sides in a global conflict, you've got to be prepared for some blowback.

Siemens has been doing this kind of stuff for a long while. They don't care who gets the tech as long as the money's green. That doesn't make them different from any other military contractor, except if you're going to make money providing strategic technologies to any and all comers, you've got to be ready to piss off their enemies.

I'm kind of happy when these transnationals learn that there might still be a few limits left. Not many mind you, but some.

Most people do not know it, but the United States has traditionally exerted strong controls over what may leave the country. Starting with prohibiting exports of long pine logs useable for masts and spars for the superweapons of 1790.

US law is exactly as many complain: very intrusive, overreaching and extraterritorial. It can be a violation to allow people (even US citizens) born in different places to even _see_ certain technologies [deemed export].

Not that I'm defending Siemens and Nokia for providing spy equipment to a regime known to torture and kill its citizens for exercising political speech, but how exactly does a court in Virginia have jurisdiction over German and Swedish companies for civil damages allegedly sustained in Iran against an Iranian citizen?

The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.

.
A few countries establish their own rights to hear international claims, known as universal jurisdiction [wikipedia.org] - thats claimed by the UK, France, Canada, and Australia for instance. I'm sure there's some nuance in the difference between Universal Jurisdiction and that created under the Alien Tort Statute that I don't know, but at it's essentially the same thing. The cases heard tend to relate to human rights issues. The Supreme Court in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain [wikipedia.org] reiterated their commitment to a test that considers international norms that are "specific, universal, and obligatory" but that's lead to it's own bundle of questions. [fjc.gov]

I am pretty positive most such claims are confined to extending jurisdiction to their own nationals in foreign territory, rather than to foreign nationals in foreign territory. Australian claims of universal jurisdiction for instance relate to war criminals resident in Australia and Australian nationals having sexual relations with persons under 16 in foreign jurisdictions. A notable exception is the UK's puerile arrest warrant for the Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, which was generally recognised as

Siemens has offices in Virginia, at least in Newport News, maybe other places. Not sure what they do there, I just figured they were contracting at places like the Northrop-Grumman shipyard, Jefferson Lab, and NASA-Langley that we have around. Regardless of the merits of claims of "lawfulness," I suspect that as Siemens has a presence here that they might be liable for violating sanctions the US has in place against Iran. Expect them to lose some contracts here, if nothing else.

Rob Whittman, the Rep from 1st District has a couple of advanced degrees related to environmental science (but he's a Republican... what's up with that?), not like the bitch he replaced (also an R) who was a college drop out with a real estate license who could barely string two sentences together. I've met him numerous times. I'd hardly say he's simple-minded. We actually got rid of the worst, most stupid Reps in the last election here (no more Thelma Drake from 2nd District!!)

Nevermind the legal outcome, just think of the PR campaign. Keeping it in the press means Nokia and oppression lose every day, and the public and journalists win. Not to mention the pressure on Iran and any country using these tactics.

Well, the Iranian government is not going to respect an American court decision. So, they're just trying to get headlines by suing a merchant. Was that equipment under embargo? But wait, an American embargo on Iran is bad because it hurts the common people more than the government. But if there was no embargo then how was it illegal to sell the equipment? I suppose Siemens should have recognized the Iranian government as "evil" and refused to do any business with them on a purely voluntary basis. But then that's racism against Muslims! Can anyone help? I'm so confused.

I don't think the United States can "embargo" a Swedish company from selling things to another country. I am also not sure it's against the law in Iran for the government to intercept any kind of communication. Don't they pretty much have totalitarian rule over there? I thought the government could pretty much do whatever it wanted?

I don't really understand this case. US Law does not apply in Iran, nor does it apply in Sweden (unless you're an American citizen, in which case you can be charged with breaking

I'm kina sure they can. If the company wants to do business in the United States, they end up being bound by US law. If the US government says you can't sell something to a specific country, or group, you end up having to play by their rules. Look at China & Google for a good example. Just in that case China had so many political, and backroom reasons to make life hell for Google.

I believe it is possible to be bound by US law, even though both the buyer and the seller are outside of the USA. The US maintains a list of countries that certain technology areas cannot be exported to. I believe the definition of exported is based on where the technology was first developed / patented.and not manufactured / assembled. Given the sheer amount of cross licensed technologies in the communications industry, it is entirely possible that the Nokia-Siemens monitoring equipment contains tec

You are confused.. I can tell by your statements.. We'll start at the beginning.. Whether or not the Iranian government recognizes an American court decision doesn't matter, because they are not being sued for anything in this... An American embargo doesn't matter either, because nothing was sold by an American company.. If you want to get to brass tacks, there isn't a major economic power in the world, that isn't guilty as hell for selling equipment causing suppression, misery, and death.. And they sell it to whoever has money.. and sell ?., heck they even give it away and charge the taxpayers for it to keep the corporations churning out more.. As the fine article states.. This is someone suing the wrong people in the wrong court.. However, as they used to say on The Peoples Court "Anybody can sue anybody for anything."

I assume by "openly states its goal to wipe another country" you mean, wipe another country off the map, namely Israel. Learn to read. Once that step is complete, progress to step 2, reading the actual speech people like you love to misquote. Never said it, never said anything close to it.

You think Iran is "bad" for tapping all phone communications? Get on your us landline or cell and start making credible threats against your government, government buildings, or the president himself. Make sure this i

Stop trotting out that old "wipe Israel off the map" nonsense. The actual quote was that he hoped for the regime of Israel to fall, a sentiment shared by many rational, sane folk across the world. When you use those untruths is just shows people that you haven't actually read anything on the subject, and that you are in fact just regurgitating what you heard on TV. The "kills and tortures its own citizens" and "trains terrorist organisations" equally applies to the US, too, just in case you missed that lovely part in US history.

Unlawful export, I would understand. That would probably violate some or other US law, if there were components, exported from the US used in those products.
But unlawful monitoring? What would the logic behind this be?

Well it makes no sense, but then again laws against devices to circumvent DCMA / copy protection devices make no sense either.
It would be nice to think it works both ways, but I suspect that will not be the case...

The same logic that allowed the allies to try and execute Nazi officers after WWII under ex post facto "war crimes" rules which hadn't existed in the first place, when they were following orders from superiors in keeping with official government policy (thus, the holocaust was "lawful" in Germany and occupied territories)? Not to Godwin the thread or anything, but the situation is one of guaranteeing a morally correct outcome even if technically what your doing is violating the spirit and letter of your le

There is no parallel here. The Nuremberg trials had a legal foothold in the international and military laws of the time (beginning with the Hague conventions). Besides, they were conducted by an international tribunal, against the military leaders of Germany.

Even the so called "Subsequent" Nuremberg trials (during which the US prosecuted various companies and individuals who allegedly assisted the Nazi regime) were conducted under the powers of the US occupational authority, and, if memory serves, were limi

Don't be naive.
Every single telecommunications vendor has tapping capability built into their equipment.
Every western government *mandates* that this functionality is built in.
It is not the equipment manufacturer who is morally wrong here.
If you think it's wrong in Iran, it's wrong in the US or Europe too.

You are totally right: The LI (Lawful Intercept) interface is a required part of all relevant telecomms standards, i.e. you cannot manufacture/sell a GSM/3G/LTE setup which doesn't have that LI interface.

Terje(Currently working on the architecture of a large national cell phone network.)

There exists no mainstream equipment without that capability. Sell it to someone in the US or UK and you are fine, but sell it to Iran and it's suddenly an international incident. If it was such a dangerous feature, why is it required in the USA (and probably many other places as well)?

Please don't call it "Lawful Intercept". That's a cheap, whitewashing euphemism dreamed up by toadies. Furthermore, it's deliberately inaccurate, since nothing about the technology itself does anything to guarantee that the use is "lawful". Call it "wiretapping". Or "spying". Or "narcing". But not "Lawful Intercept".

Totalitarian regimes are, by and large, quite benign. They only start getting heavy handed if you attack or subvert the power structures. In some countries it may well be the least worst option. While there was a compelling case for attacking Iran, making the same mistake over Iraq by sabre rattling, spreading hysterical libertarian arguments in the so-called "free press" in the West, and fermenting trouble on the ground can be counter productive.

That's a toughy, sort of like what exactly is pornography. Unfortunately, you can't say that severe torture is anything particular, but you can say that somebody that's fallen completely apart as a result was severely tortured. Which is why the Bush administration's view that they weren't torturing people was so asinine. The person committing the atrocity doesn't get to make that call, it has to be done on an impartial basis and I've yet to hear anybody that's been treated in that fashion not describe it as

I feel for what he must have gone through, and hope he brings down an Evil Corporation, setting a precedent for all Evil Corporations to come- but I think he's barking up the wrong tree.

Just because wire-tapping functionality is built-in, doesn't mean you should use it to enforce a totalitarian regime. I think Nokia could easily argue that this was not the original intent and purpose of the equipment.

Just because a length of rope can be used for strangling someone, that doesn't mean that the rope manuf

ON the other hand, if someone (someone all over the news and wanted for attempted hanging) walks into your rope store and says they need help selecting rope and tying nooses because he is having trouble hanging people to death, and you knowingly provide that rope and knotting skill, then you have also committed a crime of conspiracy to murder. aiding and abetting and possibly a few other crimes as well.

Was it illegal in Iran for their government to purchase the gear? Surely Nokia - Seimens has international divisions. Are they bound by US law when all of the elements of a transaction are conducted outside the US?
I'm not suggesting that it was not an evil deed to sell this gear to the government of Iran but whether it was actually illegal is entirely another question. And just why did they file suit in the US?

Are americans much more probable to commit crimes than any other people, in the whole world?

It's possible. The US police force is seriously under-funded and may be less of a disincentive to criminals than in other countries. So people living in america may be less likely to decide not to do a crime they really, really want to do.

Is it possible some people currently in US jails are innocent?

It's perfectly possible. A better question would be, "How could we possibly make it impossible?" I'm pretty sure that i

The fucked up thing is the first country in the Middle East that offered help to the US was Iran. Iran was absolutely shocked when Bush added them to his "Axis of Evil" in his State of the Union address in 2002, which Bush did simply because you can't have an axis of 2 countries (Iraq and North Korea) and not look like you're bullying them. Iran used to be a very moderate, western country. Women's rights, great economy, progressive thinking, socially moderate, etc. Most Iranians are the same as they were back then, only the powers that be are still reeling from having the democracy overthrown by meddling western powers (US & UK, as we know), which has resulted in this theocracy taking place as the perceived last-gasp of maintaining their autonomy. It's no wonder they are acting the way they are.

All completely irrelevant since in the US some americans call their president "a muslim that's going to destroy america" and they're never arrested which is going much further then this journalist did.

In fact you are just being a hypocrite, if you had posted this from Iran about Iran then you'd be screwed over like the journalist so I don't see how you can draw any comparison between the two.

All your post really attempts to do is distract people from actual censorship issues and the slashdot mods have bought into it hook, line and sinker.

i think plenty of countries with lower prison rates than the usa look at some of the out of control crime on their streets and in back rooms, and do not exalt in how superior their society is, but wish they could build some more jails and clean up their society too

the usa has plenty of problems. and jailing someone for smoking a marijuana joint is clearly wrong and stupid. but if you have a well-functioning criminal justice system, you're going to catch more criminals. it's that simple

Then what do you think of the USA, who added "male" in the 14th Amendment (the first place it showed up) and an attempt to remove that word with the ERA was seen as hippie extremism? They may not be cattle, but they are, by Constitutional definition, not EQUALS. And when the opportunity came to rectify that, it was ignored. Many other countries place them on explicitly equal footing, as opposed to the USA that explicitly divides the sexes.

we live in a world, including the usa, where women are paid less, treated like cattle, have acid thrown on their face because they don't submit to some asshole, are prostituted out or married off in their early teens, or otherwise dominated and abused. this is incredibly fucking obvious

but you present us the opposite. that women somehow rule

ok! pffffft

all your words mean to me is you have some sort of gigantic personal issue

did a high school girlfriend drop you like a hot potato? is the alimony too high in

Incorrect The largest surveillance system in the world is ECHELON, run by the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. North Korean "work camps" are clearly not jails. The US has a massively disproportionate jail population, and no snide wordplay is going to change that. Lying doesn't make your position any stronger.

Ummm... discrimination on the basis of nationality... isn't there a work for that... ummm... racism?Not in the english language, that word would be nationalism. But hey feel free to conflate race with national origin. Oh and the mods who had modded you insightful, put down the pipe.